Deep Throat
by TheSecretCity
Summary: A rewrite of the episode Deep Throat, from Season 1 Ep 2 which includes an OC. Not Mary Sue/spoof/etc, not AU. Please let me know what you think!
1. Chapter 1

DEEP THROAT

Chapter One

Anne Hadrian and her stepfather were driving up to the restaurant. She was in deep dog dodo and she knew it. Not only was he late, he had to bring her, and he had to bring her because she had blown something up at school and gotten expelled. He hadn't said a word.

She studied him boldly. Agent Fox Mulder was a handsome man, dark and lean and tall and so damn cheerful and passionate. Women fell over themselves to fall over him.

They looked enough alike to pass for kin-same dark hair and eyes, a natural leanness. She kept her hair short like his. Even at twelve, she was almost up to his shoulders, and he was six foot. But she was weedier then him yet.

The passenger side window was rolled down to the April air, still a bit sharp. Anne smoked a cigarette out that window, cigarettes he had bought for her when she asked. It was a fair exchange-she cooked dinner for him, and he supplied her with cigarettes.

They were no relation. He had found her along the Potomac River, ready to dive in with bricks in her pants. He'd pulled some legal hanky-panky, and gotten custody. Now she lived behind his kitchen in her own room, cooked edible meals-and got expelled from the third middle school in a year.

She finished her cigarette and threw the butt out the window. "Are you gonna talk, or what?"

He pulled into the restaurant, parked. Then he answered.

"Think you'll like to come to Idaho with us?"

She felt her eyebrows shoot up. "Scuse?"

"Well, you don't like regular school. If you were home schooled, I'd _have_ to take you with me in the field. Not on the FBI's tab, yeah, but I can buy plane tickets for you. "

"Um, did you miss something back there? At the school? Which has a hole in the cafeteria wall? That they want you to pay for?"

He shrugged in his happy puppy way. "You like the idea?"

"Well. If I get to help and not be baggage. Sure."

He held out his hand. "Deal. "

"Won't your partner think it's weird?"

"That you gotta come because of expulsion? Don't think so."

"You are a strange chicken, Fox Mulder."

"Just call me Dad and it'll fly."

Anne rolled her eyes as they got out of the car.

The wind caught the tie of his suit, whereas everything of Anne's began to spin-the purple peasant skirt, the jacket over the clingy top, even her short hair tipped with vermillion. It was like being caught in a wind tunnel, and not a sexy one either. She caught a whiff on one of the exiting patrons.

"Hey Dad," she enquired with a lilt.

"Hey daughter," he sang back.

"Could you buy me a shot of something? Like tequila?"

"No."

"What about a Cosmopolitan?"  
"Nope."

"Beer?"

"Not happening."

The restaurant smelled of thin sheets of smoke built up in layers, overlaid with a crust of alcohol and sweat. And it was dim.

"Can I light up?" she observed the atmosphere appreciatively.

"Not until we're back in the car."

She gave him a cheeky grin. "Trying to impress Little Miss with your parenting skills?"

"What parenting skills? Go stake us a table along the wall so we have three seats and 180 degree visual coverage. Go."

She stuck her tongue out at him. And went to get a table.

Watching him carefully, she saw the woman he meant, his new partner. Dana Scully was surprisingly delicate and pretty, with a bob of red hair that was a beacon in a sea of brunette and dirty blonde and black. And in the suit, she looked like someone Mulder would go after in a heartbeat.

The waiter gave her a funny look. In the interest of not blowing anything else up, physically or otherwise, she smiled back and blew a kiss at the tightwad. He scowled further. Ass.

Mulder was back. "Anne, this is Dana Scully. Scully, this is Anne Hadrian, my stepdaughter."

She noticed that Scully needed no title in Mulder's mind, and shook her tiny hand.

"Just so you know, I'm grounded, too."

"What?"

Anne indicated Mulder. "I managed to get expelled. Again. So I'm grounded."

Scully raise one auburn brow. "I see."

They all sat down, Mulder extracting a file. "This is Colonel Robert Budahas, a military test pilot. He's been missing four months. He suffered a mental breakdown and was taken by the military for treatment. His wife now can't get any information at all, and any calls regarding Budahas are now classified. His wife filed it as a kidnapping."

Anne leaned over and read, to Scully's discomfort. "Why would the military kidnap one of their own pilots?"

"That's what you and I-and Anne, since she likes explosives so much-"

"I wasn't trying to blow the wall up, FYI," she interrupted.

"Are going to the spud state to investigate a little kidnapping," he finished.

"I don't know. I thought you only liked those paranormal-type cases."

"Let's just say this case has a distinctive smell to it. A certain," he searched for the words. "Paranormal bouquet."

"Dad?" Anne asked sweetly.

"Yes?"

"I repeat: You. Strange chicken."

Mulder shook his head. "I'll be right back. And no alcohol, Anne."

"Party pooper." And she punctuated properly with a stab of her tongue in the smoky air.

Left uncomfortably with Scully, she waited. Adults couldn't deal with kids who took initiative.

"What did you blow up?" Scully finally asked.

"It was an accident, however the lunch lady spins it," Anne began. "I was showing a couple people how you could make a rocket with basic household stuff. I only made a small one. Then one of my compadres decided to make one. Fine. Uses too much of all the secret ingredients. Blows a hole in the wall. My fault, somehow. Mainly because the little snot said I had been to one to mix the sh-stuff."

"And you were expelled based on that?"

Scully's incredulity was encouraging. "Last week I staged a meep rebellion. And before that I called a teacher on some unfair grades that favored the richer students. "

"What's a meep rebellion?"

"Where everyone in any class gets together and says 'meep' to disrupt the class. It was school wide. The word 'meep' was banned from being spoken. So I wrote it on all my homework at random places. I don't think they were amused."

Scully actually laughed. "And so that's why Mulder's bringing you?"

"Yep. A meep rebellion and an explosion. But they never had hard evidence of the meep rebellion being my idea. I was careful. But I was brought in and interrogated by a white-haired man who thought that threats of expulsion and public embarrassment actually had an effect on me. So nobody liked me."

"And the teacher gave you an unfair grade, before the meep rebellion?"

"No, I got As easy. It was Libby Montez. She had gotten a low grade and her answers were similar to mine. I called the teacher on it. She'd the one who put my name forward for the meep rebellion and lead the charge for my expulsion. Dad really doesn't seem as upset as I thought. He did threaten to home school me. I should be scared."

"I didn't know Mulder was married."

"He's not," she finally grabbed a breadstick. It had no right to sit there and look edible and not let her eat it. "Basically, long to short, he knew my mom and they dated but never married. Now she's AWOL and he has custody of me until she surfaces again, if ever. But we keep it simple and I call him Dad and it all works."

Mulder came back from the men's room with the force of lightening, looking around.

"Dad? Everything cool?"

"Yeah," he scanned the crowd. "It's nothing."

Anne rolled her eyes. And put more breadsticks in her pocket on the way out, because he'd paid for them and she could take some with her if she pleased.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Throwing together her clothes for the trip to Idaho, Anne finally gave in and went to see her stepfather.

He was doing that creepy boogie thing to a seventies song when she found him locating spare shirts, tapping drumbeats in the air.

"Dad," she said, then realized the radio was too loud. "Hey Dad!"

He turned the radio down a few notches and, thank God, stopped the boogie.

"Whazzup?" he asked, trying to sound snazzy or whatever his issue was. She glared at him.

"The expulsion thing. I kind of changed a few things when I was at the school so I wouldn't have a juvenile record."

He gave her a raised eyebrow. She sighed.

"It was that kid, Tommy Wesnick. He knows that you're the only parent I've got, and you're not my real dad. Being of limited imagination himself, and that fueled by his big brother's Playboy magazines, he said I had to be Daddy's little whore."

"Ah."

"Exactly. So instead of punching him like that kid from Alexandria East, I set him up to look like he set the explosion next to the cafeteria. Which backfired a bit, since I'm expelled and he isn't. But that was the plan."

He turned the radio down so far she could barely discern Diana Ross crooning. "First and foremost, I'm proud of you for sticking to your story instead of caving to those people. I take it they didn't help? The teachers?"

"I believe they share the same opinion as Tommy Wesnick."

"So you defended yourself. Also a good thing. Please don't defend yourself with deadly force unless absolutely necessary in future, okay?"

"Got it."

"And no offense, but I couldn't really do that with you anyway, because you look like Samantha."

"No points, Pops. That'll make you look weirder. Creeps me out thinking about it."

"Me too."

"So back to the original story, where Mother Anonymous dropped me here and disappeared into the wild blue yonder, right?"

"That's all I've told Scully."

"She'll have it figured out in about two days, you know."

"Probably. She did rewrite Einstein."

"Can you buy me enough cigarettes to last the trip? So Scully doesn't see?"

He flashed a grin. "Trying to impress Little Miss?"

"Shut up," she wadded his socks and tossed them at him, missile style. " I'll be smoking in corners and showers for however long we're out there, I want a special supply. Which you owe me, since I make edible food."

"I thought that was the only way to survive my idea of food."

"If it was about survival, I wouldn't give you any."

"Ouch," he commented, pretending to reel from the slap. "By the way, Scully doesn't like planes."

"Did you get me a seat next to her?"

"Yep."

She blew a raspberry at him.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Two

Scully seemed to be doing her very best not to argue loudly with Mulder.

"She's a child, Mulder. It's unprofessional."

"I'm not leaving her at the motel," he countered. "If nothing else she'll blow something up."

"Gee, thanks. And I can hear you both, you know." Anne sniped from the backseat of the gold Taurus.

"It'll be fine."

"Mulder, the Bureau will have your head for this!"

"Who's gonna tell them? You?" he turned on the charm of his dark eyes in an attempt to get her to cool down as they prepared to drive to the Budahas house.

"That's not the point. She's twelve."

"You're twenty-six, he's twenty-nine. Point?" Anne continued her backseat commentary from behind a Thomas Hardy novel, itching for a smoke. Her cigarettes were in his bag, which had been dropped off at the motel.

"She'll be quiet. Just hang around nearly invisible."

Anne whistled a few lines of 'Materiel Girl', which apparently made Scully's case. Anne looked like a Thai prostitute-tight and tall and poison green. Invisible was not part of the package.

"I will be quiet. I will not be invisible. " she specified. "And Dad, FYI, this is the most boring book in creation."

"Dickens is worse," Mulder promised.

"Mulder!" Scully had had it up to her ears. "Hardy and Dickens are both fine authors, Anne, you should try to read them."

"'Try' being the operative word. Dad, next left or we'll be circling for days and die of starvation."

"You have a map?"

"I simply know all that's knowable."

Actually, she'd looked it up on Scully's map while they were on the plane. But he didn't need to know that.

He took the next left. "Third house on the right-hand side," Anne added.

"Anne," Scully turned to her. "We need to be delicate with this. Mrs. Budahas has lost her husband in questionable circumstances. Try not to give in to your acerbic nature."

Anne gave Scully a thumbs-up. And received a raised eyebrow.

Mulder knocked on the door of the house. It was a single-family thing, white with three steps leading up to it. It had a neat lawn, one the neighbors had probably helped Mrs. Budahas keep up.

Personally, she'd never lived in a house like that. She'd lived in slums and Dumpsters in DC, depending on the season and how much of her family she had wanted to put up with. They hadn't ever looked for her when she had left. That information should hurt more then it did.

Mrs. Budahas opened the door. She was a birdlike woman, but wispy, dark hair all curly across her head, with the slightest flicker of eyelashes as she skipped her eyes over the three of them.

"Mrs. Budahas, I'm Special Agent Fox Mulder, this is Agent Dana Scully. We're here about your husband."  
"Please come in."

She didn't remark on Anne, who was doing her best to look at everything. Photos of Colonel Budahas lined the wall of the living room, showing a star pilot in full regalia. His medals were in glass displays on the wall, and photos of him with his wife and family, even of their wedding. Everyone but her sat down.

"It started about a year ago," Anita Budahas began without preamble. "Bob developed this rash, under his arms." and her hands waved to show the space between elbow and armpit.

"At first we thought it was a reaction to the paint stripper, because of the renovations we'd been doing. But then he began to act oddly, yelling at the kids for no reason." she shrugged her shoulders under the paisley top. "Once, we were having a dinner party, and he sprinkled Tetra Meal-D all over his food."

Her hand mimed the motion Colonel Budahas must have used.

"He sprinkled fish food on his dinner?" Anne couldn't help but ask, incredulous. Anita nodded.

She wanted to know if he'd eaten it, too, but shut up when Scully glared at her.

"It's just…Bob took loyalty to his country as an _oath_, and now they treat us like strangers-"Anita cut herself off, eyes glittering.

"Mrs. Budahas, have you ever heard of this happening to anyone else?" Mulder asked softly.

Anita blinked at him. "Just one. Verla McClenan's husband, about two years ago. He had a breakdown of some kind. But it's not like he didn't get to come home."

She had finished in a whisper.

"Would it be possible to speak to Mrs. McClenan?" Scully asked.

Anita wiped her eyes swiftly. "Of course. She lives down the street. Let me get the kids and I'll take you."

And she swept off to collect her children and coat.

Anne leaned over to Mulder, about to speak, but he shushed her with a hand before she could start.

She really wanted a cigarette.

Verla McClenan had been less then pleased to be met with the Budahas family and two agents of the Bureau. But she let them see her husband, who was on the back porch.

He was making fly-fishing lures, using his own hair to wind around the flies, grinning to himself.

"How long has-" Scully started to ask.

"Almost two years now. The fly-fishing was his brother Hank's idea."

"Did the military ever say what caused this?" Mulder put in.

Anne caught the subtle shift in tone. Not for Verla McClenan was the gentleness that Anita had generated. No, she was being uncooperative. As such, she was treated with courtesy, but an edgy kind.

"Well, stress, I guess," she shrugged carelessly. "When you're the wife of a test pilot, you're just happy to have them home alive."

Mrs. McClenan detoured the room, stopping beside Mrs. Budahas. "Really, Anita-bringing the FBI to my house!" she whispered. Anita looked at her shoes.

"Well, thank you for your time, Mrs. McClenan," Mulder said, shooing the whole parade out the door, while Mrs. Budahas called her children.

Somehow, on the walk back to the Budahas house, Anne wound up with the kids. Their names were Charlie and Carol. They looked at Anne like she was from planet freak show.

"My dad's pretty good at finding people," she told them as they stared.

"A kid at school said the aliens took Dad," Carol piped up.

Well, what could she say? "Aliens usually return people, so that's the best case."

"Do you think aliens took him?" Charlie asked.

"I think we'll find out where he is. If aliens have him, we'll get him from the aliens. If the Air Force has him, we'll get him from the Air Force. That's how it works. We don't have a firm suspect list yet."

"Are you an agent?" Carol wanted to know.

"No. My dad's the agent. I'm like, I dunno, an assistant agent. I take care of annoying stuff for him, like setting up interviews with suspects and tracking down phone records," she made up as she went along.

"Don't you go to school?" Carol demanded.

"No. I kept blowing things up, so I got kicked out."

They stopped in front of the Budahas house, and Mulder handed Anita his card.

"Call us if you think of anything."

"We'll be at the Beach Grove Motel," Scully added.

Anita nodded.

After they started walking to the car, Mulder resumed his jaunty stride and began to talk.

"So, what'd you make of Uncle Fester down the block?"

"Mondo Bizarro," was Anne's contribution.

"It's called steriopity," Scully explained. "Memory loss brought on my extreme stress. Mulder, have you heard of the Aurora Project?"

"Yeah, sub-orbital spy craft. Piloted, too."

"Well, what if these guys flew those planes? Maybe they're the washouts."

"Did you see those photos in there? Colonel Budahas never washed out of anything in his life. These guys are trained to deal with stress."

Mulder had explained Occam's Razor to Anne once. Basically, it was the simplest solution, but it also limited the imagination. Anne argued that Occam's Razor needed to be used in conjunction with a wider imagination to be effective.

"Um, guys, isn't Ellen's Air Base one of the six places where wreckage from the Roswell crash were shipped? And, by that logic, couldn't the planes being flown be enough to cause physical stress in the pilot, enough to cause a breakdown?"

That incredulous eyebrow of Scully's was starting to annoy Anne big time.

"Good point," Mulder told her.

"Now that I've made such an excellent point, can we get some food?"

"Take out and a phone book," Mulder agreed. "Shall we canvas phones, Scully? Say over pizza?"

"You sure know how to show a girl a good time, " Scully said dryly.

They piled into the car, Anne in the backseat without her belt, pulling a notebook from her backpack.

"His idea of a movie night is _The Blob_," Anne confided to Scully. "Count yourself lucky that this is a work-related dinner."

Mulder had the good grace to laugh.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Chapter Four**_

_**They had argued about the pizza, and wound up with two-one with everything on it except spinach and anchovies, and another that was strictly vegan. They collected in Scully's room, Anne poured Coke into Styrofoam cups, and with a cup in one hand and a slice of everything in the other, listened as they collected phone books and phones.**_

"_**I'll call the base." **_

_**Scully nodded. "I'll try and get a rep for the Air Force."**_

_**Anne gulped down a bite. "Didn't Mrs. Budahas already call these folks?"**_

"_**Procedure," Mulder rolled his eyes.**_

"_**And since we represent the government, they'll talk to us."**_

"_**They might**_**," Mulder corrected as his call connected. "Hi, My name's Fox Mulder, I'm with the FBI. Can I speak to someone about Colonel Robert Budahas?"**

**Happily munching her pizza as Scully directed similar questions at her victim, Anne pulled out her notebook. Mulder had told her that keeping a journal might help her organize her thoughts. She suspected that the psychologist in him was at work, trying to help the same person he'd found on the Potomac-a lost, bruised girl. **

**The water had been liquid glass that night, easy enough to skate on, a mirror world that reflected everything upside down. She had seen herself in that water, a figurine of crystal. If she could reach down and pick up her other self, shatter it, and eat the shards-that had been what she was going to do, dive under and not come up until the other was eradicated. Somehow, killing that thing in the water would set her free.**

**Mulder had wandered along the Potomac that night, too, another chronic insomniac. He'd seen her, stopped, and sat beside her next to the water. Patient. He didn't even speak for awhile. Then he'd said it was cold. That was all.**

**She had wound up confessing to his reflection on the river's surface, about that she had resolved to die in the river, thank you very much, because no one would kill her but they would beat the hell out of her and then blame her for it. And the cold was nice because it didn't remind her that her collarbone still ached. And the river was colder then the air, so she'd be joining herself in the water directly.**

**He hadn't said a word to talk her down. But he had asked her name.**

**It was then that she renamed herself. She had called herself Anne Hadrian, a name she'd made up. It felt right.**

**Then he shook her hand, given her his name, and asked if she wanted at least one decent meal before she died. And in a late night Chinese fast-food place, they'd come up with a better escape plan then death for her, and Anne Hadrian, Fox Mulder's stepdaughter, left the building with him.**

**She scribbled notes about the case in her notebook, a nice leather one. And seeing Mulder and Scully together, she did a quick sketch-her on the bed, folded up like origami, and him pacing, the phone cord wrapped around his shoulders.**

**An hour later they were no closer to getting any answers.**

"**Someone named Colonel Kissel will meet with us," Scully announced. "A week from Friday."**

**Mulder nodded, let loose a stream of invective into the phone, looked at it, and then hung up.**

**From her post by the window, Anne held out her cup and waved it. "Dad, we need more crack in a can."**

**Even Mulder looked at her oddly.**

**She sighed. "Coke, cocaine, crack? Coke is crack in a can, duh."**

**Mulder raised one eyebrow in good imitation of Scully. "We need more Coke?"**

"**Por favor, padre," she agreed. "And quit with the eyebrow thing. You're a human, not a Vulcan, however much you want to be. A Vulcan, not a human."**

**He chuckled. "I've corrupted you, haven't I?"**

**Anne proceeded to snuggle deeper into the uncomfortable chair. "Dad, we're chasing a kidnapped pilot in the middle of a UFO hot zone. And I'm a willing participant."**

"**Do you know that-"**

**Anne interrupted him. "Yeah, yeah. Six pilots have gone missing from Ellen's Air Base since 1963. Coke, already! Don't make me wander down to the vending machine. I've always wanted to take one of those apart."**

**Mulder scattered, muttering about not paying for a new vending machine on top of a wall. It was her and Scully.**

**Scully spoke first. "Where were you when we were in Oregon?"**

**Anne leaned so that her head was pointed to the floor and her feet to the ceiling. "I stayed with his mom. We didn't get on. He was going to leave me with some anarchist friends of his, but since I'm on the fast track for juvenile delinquency I guess he decided to bring me. "**

"**I hope you realize I like you just fine. I just don't think that the inner workings of the FBI are appropriate things for you to have to deal with at your age."**

"**They're inappropriate at any age, I think. Pent-up rage spilling out like pus, bruise egos purpling into revenge like overripe fruit, thwarted passion turning on itself like a mad dog. It's enough to infect anyone."**

**She could see the little shanty outside Alexandria, where she'd seen her family's children left like gutted pigs, her brother and sister. And her parents calmly having lunch while the bodies stained the floor alizarin crimson, so potent it made her gag. And they had been drinking red wine.**

"**Does it frighten you?" Scully asked.**

"**I suppose it does. But not really, not to the core, because even you and I and Mulder are capable of those same acts. If you fear and hate yourself, any part, doesn't that sort of block that out? The ability to understand how and why people are capable of those acts, and therefore to stop them?"**

**Scully considered, head cocked. "I don't know. Because I never want to be like that. So I do block it off."**

**Kissel. The name niggled. "Can I see the phone book?"**

"**Sure."**

**Flipping through the residential listings, she alighted in the Ks. "Colonel Kissel's first name is what?"**

"**John."**

**Anne nodded. "John Kissel lives at 405 Whitewall Street. That's maybe nine miles away, middle of town," she looked up at Scully, twinkling. "We could either A, go and pay him a visit, or B, go and vandalize his place."**

"**Option A, definitely."**

**Mulder came back and handed Anne the Coke, which she took in one hand and her coat in the other. Scully was getting ready, too.**

"**What are we-" he began.**

"**Road trip," Anne informed him.**

"**Anne had an idea," Scully added.**

**Mulder grabbed his own coat. "I knew I shouldn't leave you two alone."**


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Outside Kissel's house, Anne was having another thought. It involved something more terrestrial then Martians. It involved the cigarettes she'd stashed in her pocket, and the lighter, and how to get both items past Scully to use them. Finally, since they were both ignoring everything in the car, including each other, she opened the door of the car.

"I need to run," she explained.

Mulder nodded. "Got cash?"

She flashed him a cheeky grin. "Check your wallet."

And she shut the door on his invective.

Actually, as she jogged down Whitewall and turned toward the promising direction of Sweetwater, it had probably been rude to insinuate that she'd picked his pocket. But it was so damn funny to see him scramble for whatever she supposedly took, she could hardly resist.

The street of Sweetwater contained the municipal park, the requisite swings and slides at attention. She ducked behind a tree and lit up.

The smoke hitting her lungs was pure heaven. God, she was addicted. It was wonderful. She'd probably smoke two just because she could.

"Radical hair, dude."

She spun around, and promptly relaxed. It was a girl dressed out in baggy jeans and looking like a groupie from grunge rock. She also smelled like weed.

"Thanks. Hadrian." she introduced herself.

"I'm Elfie."

Anne nodded. "Cigarette?"

"Naw, I'm cool. You want a joint?"

Would she ever be in trouble. "Sure, I'll split one. If I have a whole I'll be stratospheric."

"Awesome," Elfie sat down and rolled a joint.

"You new around here, Hadrian?"

"Pretty much."

Elfie lit the joint, taking a drag before passing it. "Seen the airshow yet?"

"No. Only been here a few days."

She took her own drag of the joint. It hit her brain before her lungs.

"You should come with us. Me and my boyfriend. We go out to the base, through this hole in the fence, and get high and junk. We watch the show. It's, like, every night. Totally radically awesome. Wanna come?"

Anne realized she had been holding the smoke in her lungs, released it, and handing the joint back before returning to the cigarette in her other hand. A firsthand encounter with a UFO?

"Why not? My dad's boring as hell. And," she added wickedly. "He probably won't even notice I'm gone."

Elfie's boyfriend was another grunge lovechild who went by the moniker Roofer. He had a scooter, which went slower with three people but still made it to the hole in the fence by dark.

Roofer and Elfie lead her through the hole, which scraped her forearm, and into tall weeds, easily her height. Their 'spot' was under a few lone trees. She sat herself down, cigarettes in hand, while those two did what people did together while high and horny-made out and giggled.

It was oddly comforting.

The thing about cigarettes was that she never felt hungry while she smoked. So even though lunch had been bad pizza and a ton of Coke, she was still good.

As she chain-smoked she watched the sky. Finally, at about nine pm according to her watch, the show began.

Two lights, absolutely silent, began to dance and swerve in maneuvers she had never seen. It was an epic dance. Even Elfie and Roofer stopped the whatever they were doing to watch.

After an especially spectacular twirl where both _things_ came together and dove skyward, out of sight, Anne heard it.

"That was awesome! I told you it was awesome, Hadrian," Elfie exclaimed.

"Totally radical," Roofer agreed.

"Guys, listen."

They obeyed, and a thrumming became more pronounced.

"That's a helicopter," Anne realized. "Shit, that's a search accessory. Come on, we gotta get lost or we'll be fried. Now!"

They all took off at a dead run, straight for the fence. As they did, the tightness in her lungs made Anne wish she'd skipped a few cigarettes.

They reached the fence and dove through, Anne bringing up the rear. They skirted a gold Taurus, which she recognized, and made for the trees.

"Under the trees, not into the open! Jeshua Christos," she ordered, dragging on Elfie's arm.

"Hey! Freeze, FBI!"

It was Mulder, waving his gun with intent. He must have been watching the airshow too.

"I know this, estupio," she shouted behind her, having dragged Elfie under the tree with Roofer tagging obediently. "Getcha ass under here already."

So all of them-including a perturbed Scully, Anne wondered how that had transpired-huddled under a tree until the helicopter passed.

"That was awesome," Roofer pronounced.

"Where the hell were you?" Mulder demanded.

Anne looked at him. "Gee, where does it look like, rocket science? I was in the air base watching the airshow. From damn closer then you."

"Are you high? I thought we had an agreement."

"We did, I'm not, they are, will you please get a grip. Hi Dana," she added.

Dana gave her the evil eye. "We looked all over for you. Did you know that?"

Elfie and Roofer watched the now three-way discussion. Elfie spoke up first. "Dude, are these your folks?"

"Got none other. How about we dump their scooter in the trunk and get something to eat? They've been watching the airshow for years."

That caught Mulder's attention. "Good idea."

"Mulder!" Scully protested. "And you-don't ever do that again!" Now she was focused on Anne. "Never!"

Anne held up her hands in mock surrender.

"Scully, she's fine."

Anne made a slashing gesture to shut him up. Not that he would listen.

"She could have been kidnapped!"

That was it. Anne whistled sharply, like she was calling a dog. Everyone stared at her with varying degrees of horror. Except her new friends, who thought it was funny.

"I am not kidnapped. I am fine. And we have bigger fish to fry. And there's a helicopter in the area looking for miscreants. So how about we take this discussion somewhere else very far away from Ellen's Air Base, and act halfway civilized instead of everyone yelling and having coronaries and kittens."

And she marched to the car.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

They wound up at an all-night café at midnight, sitting around a table piled with sandwiches bigger then Anne's head.

She wanted another cigarette. Bad.

"Sometimes," Roofer explained. "They fly real low, you know, and then they sort of put on the brakes like-" he inserted a screech. "And then they just hover there, and then shot off. You don't hear the sound until later. Like whoa."

"What do you think they are?" Mulder asked.

Personally, looking at Scully, Anne wondered why her dad's partner hadn't killed him yet. She looked ready to.

"Well, lots of people think they're like, UFOs ,but I think it's like some super secret weapons project, getting ready to roll out for Desert Storm Two. Buzz Saddam's palace. He'd be like, 'What?'"

The image of Saddam Hussein scratching his head outside his palace while UFOs flew over his roof was funny enough to make Anne giggle. She stifled it at Scully's harsh look.

But Mulder was all smiles for Elfie and Roofer. Anne knew she was in for it worse then when she'd made a bomb that exploded trash in the apartment. He was being too nice.

"Did those UFOs look anything like this?"

Ah, that was the crux. As Scully's mouth tightened, Anne saw the photo-a triangular UFO hovering over a backyard. She nodded absently, remembering the vague shapes in the sky. It was possible.

"No," and Mulder looked crushed at Roofer's decree.

"It looked _exactly_ like that," Roofer continued, shoving more sandwich into his mouth.

Scully looked to Anne for support.

"Roadside restaurant?" Anne asked sympathetically. Scully just nodded.

"They keep the planes at a place they call Yellow Base," Elfie offered. "It's surrounded by all these landmines and stuff. We've never gone that far. Just to our spot."

"Yeah, people who go looking for Yellow Base disappear and then they wind up on the back road two counties over like they spent the last few days drugged out."

Probably like Elfie and Roofer.

"Why?" Anne asked.

"Cause the military like, did one of those mind wipe things," Elfie said.

Anne nodded again, thinking and chewing the interior of her cheek. But did it have anything to do with Colonel Budahas?

"Do they do those to the pilots, too?"

"Probably. They go all wonky sometime," Elfie made her hand jiggle to demonstrate.

"All the ones you've seen have gone wonky?"

Elfie nodded firmly. "They all go wonky sometime," Roofer repeated.

After dumping the scooter so they could go off to where ever they lived, the three of them piled into the car. Anne put a tape on, leaning over the backseat to do so. It was rock n roll.

Having gotten a stick of gum from Elfie at some point-or maybe it had been Roofer-hell, even the waitress could've had it-Anne popped it into her mouth.

"You," she pointed at Mulder. "Do not yell at me like that in front of everyone again unless I committed heinous, vile acts of perversion like the Bloody Countess. And you were supposed to have been back from Bellefleur a week previous to when you did, so don't talk to me about disappearing. Scully can, but you can't, capice?"

And she leaned back to chew her gum. Mulder looked at her. "I hate when people play turnabout."

Anne cracked her gum across her teeth in reply.

Scully turned to look at her. "Will you tell me where you'll be at?"

"Try to. This thing with those guys sort of came out of nowhere. Did you guys get to see Kissel?"

Mulder replied. "He told us to kiss his."

"And this surprises you why?" Anne asked cheekily.

Mulder made a face at her.

"Mulder, please tell me that you don't take those two seriously. Anne, did you take them seriously?"

Anne shrugged.

"Scully," Mulder began in his enthusiastic puppy voice. "Can't you see a resemblance between the two?"

"You have two _blurry_ photos, one taken over fifty years ago," Scully began. "You have the testimony of two teenagers, and if I were that stoned-"

"Whoa, if you were that stoned, what?" he asked. Anne groaned on Scully's behalf.

"You don't have anything, and we're no closer to finding Colonel Budahas, which is our primary reason for being here, or should be," she glossed over what Mulder had implied.

"Can't you see a resemblance?" Mulder handed the photos to Anne, one the UFO in the backyard, another of one of the Roswell sightings.

She looked at them, at two triangular craft in the air. "Dad."

"Go on. Tell me I'm crazy."

Anne and Scully looked at each other. "Mulder," Scully announced. "You're crazy."

"The peanut gallery concurs, and would furthermore like another Coke," Anne added.

"Haven't you had enough junk in your system for one day?" Scully wanted to know.

"No such thing as too much shit. Stuff. I meant stuff. Well, I didn't actually, but Dad has a fit if I swear in front of you because it makes him look bad," she chirped cheerfully.

"Let's all go back to the motel and sleep," Scully decided. "And Anne, please only swear if you have to."

"Yes ma'am," and she clunked Mulder on the back of the head. "You heard her, drive."


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

**At the motel, Anne sprawled on her new favorite piece of furniture, having switched out one set of jeans and a tee-shirt for another that didn't smell like weed and cigarettes. After stuffing them into her duffel, she had taken her Coke and pulled up her new residence by the window-the requisite hard stuffed chair that was a reject from Goodwill.**

**She was itching for another nicotine hit. Scully had gone to get messages from the desk, and Mulder was bent over some file he'd brought. **

"**Dad," she tried and failed to get his attention. He was too engrossed in what he was reading.**

**She picked up the paper instead, skimming the headlines and going to the Personals. Those were always vastly amusing.**

_**Single white female looking for white male**_**, read one. It went on the ask for someone who liked the usual mush-long walks, movies, home-cooked meals. If Anne had an ad, it would probably be along the lines of 'Single white female seeks fellow lunatic to help solve heinous and intricate crimes, smoke and drinking a plus.' And Mulder-she didn't even want to know what his would be.**

**She threw the paper down. "Dad, did you get photos of the UFOs last night?"**

**It was probably the word 'UFO' that caught his attention. He looked up.**

"**Photos, old man. Of the UFOs."**

"**Yeah," he waved to the camera protruding like a tumor from his field kit.**

**She went over and picked it up. Extracting the film, she did a switch, then put to used film in her pocket. New film was now in the camera. And if someone searched **_**her **_**pockets?**

**Now evading the government was getting intriguing. What to do now that she appeared to have the photographic evidence, taken from his camera in broad daylight in full view of anyone looking in?**

**She flopped back in her chair, considering. A good place to hide…**

**That's when it struck her, because where was the best place to hide something everyone was looking for? She set about and had moved several things around in bags and parcels when Scully ran back, out of breath.**

"**You won't believe this," she said around her breathing. "Colonel Budahas just came home."**

**Satisfied with her ability to conceal in plain sight, Anne piled into the car with them to go see the Budahas family.**

**Anita answered the door with tears at the ends of her lashes like diamond chips.**

"**That's not my husband. That man," she had a hand to her face and let them inside.**

**Charlie and Carol were sitting at the dining room table, coloring, with all the appearance of having been set there by their mother. Anne joined them.**

"**Hey, what up?" she asked, sprawling in a chair. Charlie shrugged.**

"**Dad came home," Carol offered.**

**Anne could see Mulder and Scully with Anita and the Colonel in the living room. "Yeah, I got that. Your mom looks a little whacked."**

"**Yeah," Carol agreed.**

"**She thinks something's wrong with him," Charlie added.**

**Anne could see why. He looked like someone had vacuumed the carpet of his brain with about five high-speed Hoovers simultaneously. "Is there? Something whacked about him, I mean."**

**Charlie shrugged again. Carol spoke for them both. "He yelled that he didn't want to talk about anything while he was gone because he was home and he didn't want to fly anymore ever."**

"**Doesn't he like to fly?" Anne asked. **

"**Not now. He doesn't want me to be a pilot anymore," Charlie added.**

**Anne saw Mulder stand up. She got herself out of the chair. "Guess we're off to see the Wizard. Bye guys."**

**They bent back over the coloring. Anne caught a glimpse of a puppy on Carol's paper, a fir truck on Charlie's. Neither bothered to say good-bye.**


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

They drove back quietly, taking a back road. Scully was pondering something. Anne looked out at the window at passing scenery, still scrubby brown from winter, and occasionally at the rearview mirrors. Since Mulder never paid attention to what was in the mirrors, Anne saw them first.

"Dad, black sedan behind."

"Mulder!" Scully shouted at the same time as another black sedan, this one coming toward them, pulled across the road. Mulder braked.

"Shit," he commented in general.

The men in black-God, what a cliché-surrounded the car and one tapped the window.

"Sir, please step out of the car."

"If I ignore him, d'ya think he'll go away?" Mulder asked. Another tap, repeating the request more loudly. "Guess not."

"Federal agents," Scully said calmly as they were patted down. Well, except for Mulder, who had to make things more difficult and protest them going through his things. He was made to stand spread-eagle against the car after having his kidneys socked. Anne winced sympathetically.

One of the men got in her face. "Where the film?"

"Camera bag next to the briefcase," she glared back. "And take off those sunglasses, you look like a poofter," she added for the pure fuchsia shock.

Apparently he realized he'd just been called gay, because he scowled. Or maybe he just reacted that way to any kind of jeering tone so he didn't look totally stupid.

They ransacked the bag and pulled out a canister of film, which they exposed to the light, ruining it.

"Go home, agents," they were told. "And you too, little girl." Anne flipped him the bird. "You and your boyfriend in each other asses like dogs till you get stuck in that rut and have to be pulled apart by the paramedics, bitch."

The man to whom she directed that speech courteously returned her gesture. Satisfied that she'd irritated him, she dumped herself into the backseat again.

"Let's go back to the hotel. I want to run those plates," Scully yanked the seatbelt on fiercely.

. . . .

Scully hung up the phone. "Gail couldn't find anything on the plates."

Mulder was laying down, nursing his bruises. He shifted and sat up. "I'm not surprised."

"Now what?" Anne asked. "Case closed, since the Colonel's back home?"

It made sense to her, and Scully nodded. Mulder didn't.

"What about the UFOs?" he asked.

Anne rolled her eyes. "Dad, you can't solve the mystery of UFOs looking at one piece of the puzzle. We can take what we know back to DC and put it in context. With other sightings and so forth."

"She'd right," Scully agreed.

Mulder sighed. "Okay. I'm going to take a shower and change, and then we can go. Okay?"

Scully nodded. Anne felt the hair on the back of her neck stand directly on end. It only stood up on end preceding general stupidity in the immediate vicinity. She narrowed her eyes at Mulder, who slide away from her eyes and went outside, supposedly back to his hotel room.

Anne started to gather her things that had somehow landed in Scully's room-a random pair of socks to start. Her notebook, for another. Then-

"Dammit!" the car had started, and Anne crashed through the door just before Scully. Just in time that they both saw Mulder speed off in the rental car.

They looked at each other. Anne felt something hot under her eyes, angrily swiping at her face least anything hot escape.

"He's such a damn ditcher."

And Scully nodded. Giving a last glare at the road, Anne went back into Scully's room, surprised at her anger. After all, they weren't really family.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter Nine**

**It was getting darker. Mulder wasn't back yet.**

**Anne scribbled in her journal. Scully paced, ordered take-out Chinese, and after that came, paced more with the container of kung pow chicken in her hand. Anne nibbled an egg roll and thought longingly of cigarettes.**

"**I can't believe him," Scully announced. "I really can't."**

"**He has commitment issues," she was adding a sketch to her text-of the view from the window.**

"**Is that why he and your mother aren't together?"**

**Anne shrugged. Her real parents probably still hadn't noticed she was missing. "None of my beeswax. She's not here, he is. Usually."**

"**Have some Chinese."**

"**Are you one of those compulsive feeder people? I never dealt well with those. They think you're rude if you don't eat."**

**Scully laughed. "Bad habit from my mom."**

"**Toss an egg roll, then."**

**Scully sat next to her and they dug into the Chinese together. Leaning over, Scully caught sight of her notebook's half-filled pages. "You have lovely handwriting."**

"**Dad taught me," she nibbled the egg roll. It was grease and brittle bread, exactly how she liked it. "He has really clear cursive. Before I did these capital block letters like a five year old. Not pretty."**

"**I always preferred to type."**

**Anne shrugged. "Well, I never typed before. We lived in the projects, you know?" And she had , really, cooped up like sardines in a can, two adults and three kids. Except before she left she was the only living child. Her brother and sister were gone, buried in someone's back yard. Or maybe two someones. She never knew. That was when it was time to split like peas.**

"**Are you from Virginia?"**

"**Originally West Virginia. In the backwoods. We moved intercity for some reason I never quite got. School wasn't it, that's for sure." Hell, she hadn't been to a school until Mulder made her. Reading was something she learned from Sesame Street. After that it was just finding the right books. "The school I went to sucked like a Hoover on crack."**

"**Well, if you didn't blow things up-"**

"**Hey hey hey, I cleared that up with you, Red. I was falsely accused of junk. But school is boring. I hope Dad gives me more advanced work."**

"**How advanced?"**

"**Algebra. Precalculus. Psychology. Hard science. Computers. Probably have to get that last from some friends of his."**

"**You know, I could teach you some of that."**

"**You don't need to." **

"**I know. But I like to teach."**

"**That's right, you teach at the Academy. Any chance I could help autopsy someone?"**

**It was a joke, but Scully took it seriously. "Maybe in a few years. If you learn enough about anatomy."**

"**Awesome. You rock."**

**They ate quietly together. The light was almost gone outside. Anne felt the pressure on the back of her neck like a warning. Hell, maybe it was. Mulder was out there, doubtless engaged in something stupid. **

"**You tired?" Scully asked, neatening the take out containers.**

"**Chronic insomniac. Dad and I stay up half the night watching bad TV. Or the old black-and-whites. I can get by on three, four hours."**

"**Well, I'm going to try and catch a few hours."**

"**Okay. I may walk around the block, go next door and randomly call people in the phone book. Get some coffee."**

"**Smoke?"**

"**Is it that obvious?"**

"**You smell like an advertisement for Virginia Slims."**

"**Have you ever smelled one of those? I think it'd be hard, since they're either film or paper."**

**She tried to be jaunty. **

"**Just be aware that smoking is bad for you. I'm not your mother. Or father."**

**Anne slipped out, leaving Scully to catch a few hours before whatever hell Mulder raised came and visited them.**

**Scully was right. She wasn't Anne's mother. And Mulder wasn't her father.**

**She lit a cigarette and laid on the sidewalk in front of Scully's room, looking at the sky. A star shot over head, a bright green streak against the blue velvet.**

**She closed her eyes and made a wish. And then dozed in the cooling night air. **


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter Ten**

**Anne woke up just before sunrise. Damn, she'd slept better outside then in. A tip to remember.**

**She stretched and checked the lot. The rental car was still gone. Damn Mulder, too.**

**Getting up, she went and got a cup of coffee from the motel lobby. It was slightly charred and lacked sugar and cream. Scully got up after she came back, already on the phone, which probably wasn't working, since she burst in the lobby a minute later.**

"**Can I use your phone? Mine's dead."**

"**Sure."**

**Scully tapped buttons ineffectually. "This one's not working, either."**

"**Phones go out here all the time. People blame the military."**

**Anne snorted. "Are they right?"**

**Of course, no one paid her any mind. Scully slammed the phone down, then looked outside at a slim gold car pulling up. Not the rental-it was too streamlined to be a Taurus. But Scully recognized it.**

"**Mossinger."**

**Scully walked out, nonchalant. Anne started to follow.**

"**Stay here, Anne."**

"**Fat chance in crimson hell."**

**Anne was better at nonchalant then Scully. But she wasn't feeling her own back up for a gun, either.**

**Mossinger exited Scully's room. "Oh, hi, Agent Scully. I was looking for you, saw the door was open…"**

**Anne rolled her eyes. "Use a different excuse, jeez. That one's so worn out you couldn't use it for summer curtains. What are you? Reporter? Crank? No, something else. James Bond wannabe, probably. Am I close?"**

**She heard the crackle of a two-way radio. "Redbird, this is Base. Come in, Redbird."**

**It was Anne's opinion that women worked together better then men, because they were more in tune with universal female body language and not as interested in having a pissing contest. So they were able to both dive into Mossinger's car. Anne had the doors locked, and Scully took out a Glock from the glove compartment. It was aimed at his face a second later when he finally got the door open.**

"**Hands on the car!" Scully yelled into his face. "Spread out! Now!"**

"**You are making a mistake, Agent Scully."**

**Anne blew a raspberry. She'd found a knife under the seat, and flicked it through her fingers. "Buddy, are you that stupid that you argue with a woman whose got a gun to your head?"**

**She tucked the knife into her belt. And when she heard the familiar putter of Roofer's scooter, wondered if the universe was out to fuck up the day.**

**Roofer and Elfie pulled up, still generally confused. "Where'd you dump my dad?" she asked them.**

"**He went to Yellow Base," Roofer began.**

"**We waited as long as we could," Elfie finished.**

"**Mother fudge nuts," Anne grumbled.**

"**Okay," Scully hadn't removed the gun. "This is how it's going to work. You are going to drive," and she tilted the gun a little into Mossinger's neck. "You are going to drive us to Yellow Base and have them hand over Mulder. Otherwise, I'll shoot you. Clear enough?"**

"**Very."**

"**Good. Anne, once he gets into the car, cover him with the knife until I get around."**

**Anne unsheathed the knife. As soon as Mossinger sat down, she had the blade pressed against his jugular. "Do not touch anything until she gets in."**

"**You are too big for your britches."**

"**Maybe they just don't make my size in this county."**

**Scully slide in the other side. "Start the car, and drive to the airbase."**

**Anne leaned out the window. "Favor, guys? Check up on the Budahas kids now and then. They could use some people to hang with."**

**Roofer and Elfie said something, but they were already moving down the road, blurring colors with the speed. She hoped it was assent.**


End file.
